SLEAZE ROXX

Flynn’s family break-in trauma

Machine Head Robb tells of hard time after $30,000 burglary as he reveals false start on songwriting for new album

Ordeal: Flynn, second left, with Machine Head

Machine Head mainman Robb Flynn says his young sons had a hard time dealing with the aftermath of a break-in where over $30,000 worth of items were stolen and never recovered from his family home.

He lost five guitars in the crime, including one given to him by late Pantera icon Dimebag Darrel Abbott and a prototype for his custom instrument line. But he’s angriest about a small Epiphone Flying V which he’d bought for his three-year-old boy.

“It was pretty fucked. The hardest part was when me and my two sons discovered it – they were six and three and a half at the time.

“It was really traumatic for them. Every night before they went to bed they were like, ‘Dad, are the robbers going to come in and kill me?’ I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to let that happen.’

“To them it’s like Scooby-Doo and they’re going to come in through the window. They can’t process it like we process it. That finally went away but for a few months it was fucking hard.”

Flynn has stated on several occasions his belief that he was targeted by a criminal gang. He reflects: “Times are tough and people are desperate and doing fucking crazy shit. I get it. I’m a target.

“We were cased and I was followed. That’s a tough thing to deal with and it shakes your faith in humanity. It’s like, ‘What the fuck? You stole my fucking son’s guitar.’

“But within two or three days my friends loaned me computers and guitars to write on. A bunch of our fans for something going and bought both of my sons new guitars. One one hand it shakes your faith, and in the same breath you see all these people do these amazing things.”

Machine Head are set to release new album Unto the Locust at the end of September – but Flynn reveals they struggled when they set out to start writing the follow-up to acclaimed 2007 release The Blackening.

He says: “The last six months of touring that album, the only question we got was, ‘How are you going to top The Blackening?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know.’

“We started in November 2009, brought in a bunch of riffs and wrote for about two weeks. To be honest it was a total bum-out.

“We went back on tour for another six months then took a break. It was great – then after a while my brain was just going.”